


Shot

by aderyn



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Episode: s01e01 A Study in Pink, Episode: s02e03 The Reichenbach Fall, The Adventure of the Empty House, amnesia & terminal ballistics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-08
Updated: 2013-04-08
Packaged: 2017-12-07 20:29:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/752767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aderyn/pseuds/aderyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You,” Sherlock says to the air, “love me.”</p>
<p>Shot through the heart: not an advantage.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shot

_“Here's white man's metal next to your heart.”—Jim Jarmusch, “Dead Man”_

There were ghost-birds in the trees in Helsinki.

A woman with a violin.

A bullet.

A sign.

“You,” Sherlock says to the air, “love me.”

He’s trembling. He's shaking in these hands. Blood's running down over the lacrimal bones.

He's not certain but he thinks he's just climbed an odd number of stairs.

*****

"Sherlock,” the arms say,“lie down."  
  
That’s his name; he does, on the sofa he thinks he knows, and the hands, quick, competent, search the breaks, press the knots; stop, tenderly, over the blackened ribs.

*****

Think tungsten; think lead; the copper cavitation of the heart.

When he fell it was a dead hit.

A pinion of steel that’ll never come out.

*****  
He winces, only a little.

"Concussion,” the voice says, the hands say, “hospital.”

"Late,” he says, like he’s already dead.

*****

If a bullet (he thinks) kills the window, does its back-and-forth in the blue (of that eye) there’ll be cars and cameras and the crisp directive of the familiar and a clipped umbrella-tipped (nothing) and the string-sigh of lights and the voice saying you’re all right, you remember; you remember.

“John,” he says.

“I do,” says John.

*****

Came back to roost, to finish, to stay.

It’s not the first time he’s walked around gone.

After Hope he didn’t have a chance.

He’d thought it was lost, but the bullet put it back.

 

 

 

A footnote:

**_John, Graveside_**  
  
I've brought you a fistful of flame  
For the second time, hot-centered  
Narcissi at the grave  
And the bullet that saved your life.

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by  
> [Ghost birds](http://songstersmiscellany.tumblr.com/post/46908224087/abstraire-cedric-le-borgne-le-desir-et-la)  
> and  
> [ White trees, Helsinki](http://www.flickr.com/photos/karismafilms/8413821224/)  
> and  
> [ Jim Jarmusch’s Dead Man](http://seul-le-cinema.blogspot.com/2009/12/films-i-love-46-dead-man-jim-jarmusch.html)  
> and
> 
> lack of sleep.


End file.
